Campos wants stricter rules on S.F. health care accounts

John Coté, Heather Knight, Marisa Lagos

Updated 5:14 am, Tuesday, March 11, 2014

It looks like it's loophole closure time all over again.

Supervisor David Campos is once again proposing legislation to stop employers from pocketing millions of dollars that were supposed to pay for employee health care as part of the city's universal health care law.

The centerpiece of Campos' proposal is a requirement that money employers deposit in savings accounts to reimburse their workers for their health care expenses actually gets used for that. Now, employers may take back the unused portion of the money after two years, and some do.

In 2010, 860 employers put a total of $62.5 million into the accounts, paid out $12.4 million and kept the rest, officials reported.

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Campos, who on Tuesday will ask the city attorney to draft this latest legislation, tried to close the loophole in 2011 by preventing employers from taking back money until 18 months after an employee had left the company. But after the Board of Supervisors approved his legislation, MayorEd Leevetoed it amid concerns from businesses that said it would tie up millions of dollars and could force them to lay off workers or possibly close.

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In 2011, 17 percent of employers who opted for the reimbursement accounts to comply with the city's Health Care Security Ordinance paid out absolutely nothing, the draft report said.

In 2012, after the loophole fix, 12 percent of employers with the accounts reported reimbursing nothing for employee health care, the report said.

With the city's economy humming amid growing frustration about income disparity, Campos may find a better reception at the Board of Supervisors for his legislation this time around and get eight votes to make it veto-proof.

It's about the housing: San Franciscans are deep thinkers with decidedly complicated views about pretty much everything - their own city included. We love living here and think the city's future is bright, but we're also deeply concerned about the cost of housing, as well as other big issues, including homelessness, crime and public schools.

Those are the findings of the latest round of the San Francisco Survey, an online poll of 616 registered voters performed every three months and paid for by the Committee on Jobs, a moderate-to-conservative (on the San Francisco spectrum) political advocacy group with sway at City Hall. The first survey was conducted in September, the second in November and the third last month.

The questions change somewhat each go-around, but San Franciscans' feelings about their city have remained fairly consistent. In February's poll, a whopping 88 percent say San Francisco is a good place to live, and 67 percent say they're excited about the city's future.

Nonetheless, housing remains residents' top concern. Asked to name the three biggest problems facing San Francisco, 50 percent said the cost of living and 45 percent said housing. (The former has remained steady, whereas the latter has climbed from 33 percent in September.)

In addition to the cost of living and housing, 41 percent listed homelessness as one of the top three problems facing San Francisco. Two-thirds said implementing Laura's Law, used to compel mentally ill people into treatment, would help address the problem. Forty-three percent listed public transportation, traffic and the sorry state of the city's streets as a top concern. Nineteen percent said public schools were on that list.

Digging deeper into the issue of affordable housing - or lack thereof - the poll found that 78 percent of registered voters think the city needs to build more housing for middle-class families and 62 percent support more housing for low-income families. Sixty-eight percent say it's important to protect rent-controlled housing amid the recent spike in evictions.

Supervisor David Campos announced legislation Monday that can only be construed as an attempt to put another feather in his "LGBT and tenants ally" cap: It would require large developers who want to build in San Francisco to detail whether they have a national antidiscrimination policy that includes gays and lesbians.

San Francisco and the state of California, of course, already prohibit any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. But Campos, who is running against fellow supervisor David Chiu for a seat in the state Assembly, noted that national fair housing laws and most states don't protect the LGBT community from discrimination.

He said that 1 in 5 transgender people has been refused housing in the United States, 1 in 10 has been evicted because of their gender identity, and that a recent study by federal housing officials showed that same-sex couples are often discriminated against when they go looking for rental housing.

"We want to know whether a developer hoping to build in San Francisco is protecting LGBT housing rights when they own or manage housing in states where legal protections don't exist," he said in a written statement. "By collecting this information we can highlight best practices and urge those who do not have these policies to do the right thing."

He can also cite the legislation as he campaigns for an Assembly seat that has been held by an LGBT person for the last 19 years. Just sayin'.